Alternative Title

Abstract

This thesis proposes a two-fold examination of the literary writing of slavery in France and its former colonies, and in the United States, using both a diachronic and comparative approach. It also takes into account the perspective of the construction and transmission of the memory of transatlantic slavery. The diachronic dimension adopted in this work aims to enlighten on the contemporary writing of slavery. Indeed, several hundreds accounts of slaves– known as “slave narratives” – had been published in the United States, more rarely in England, as early as the 18th century, but there were no such narratives in the francophone world. This striking disparity turned out to be a case worth analyzing to find out about its causes, its origins and its consequences on both the memory and the writing of slavery. As a matter of fact, African American literature bears the direct influence of these testimonies. Identified as “neo-slave narratives”, African American novels dealing with slavery have been collected and analyzed by critics since the 1960's. The last part of this dissertation focuses on the Francophone Caribbean writing of slavery. It is examined in comparison with the African American production and the striking difference noted in the historic and discursive heritage of the slave narratives. This lack in the francophone critical field led us to prepare the ground for the analysis and the review of the contemporary Francophone Caribbean writing of slavery, and for a generic expression: francophone slave narratives.